Bohemia (Cechy in Czech) was established long before the vinous expansion of Moravia, but despite this headstart it now accounts for just 5% of the Czech Republic's annual wine production.
Bohemia's position in the Czech wine industry is now largely ceremonial: it covers the picturesque, traditional, historic end of production, leaving Moravia to churn out many millions of gallons of wine each year. Bohemia works to reinforce the romantic image of Czech winemaking and looks after the nation's tourists; Moravia works to ensure those tourists can buy Czech wine when they return to their home countries.
©Wikimedia/Rudolf Kukačka
Bohemia became properly established as a wine region in the late 16th century, under the rule of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (also King of Bohemia). The first vines may have been planted there two centuries earlier, during the reign of Charles IV, but it wasn't until the 1580s that Bohemia saw focused vinicultural development. The vineyards were, as now, somewhat fragmented: planted not according to the rules of efficient, intensive agriculture, but to the capabilities of the individuals tending them.
This pattern of development is standard for wine regions in those times. Vinegrowing was an enterprise of individuals, and there were few (if any) large-scale wine companies like those existing today. Whether the vignerons in question made their own wine or came together in co-operatives was a question of practicality, and of local custom. Their vines were located near their homes, certainly within walking distance and typically within sight too.
During the communist era in the second half of the 20th century, almost all vineyards in Bohemia (and across what was then Czechoslovakia) came under state control. Individuals were permitted just one-tenth of a hectare for private, personal use, while the remaining land was used for intensive, collective agriculture. During this era, industrialization arrived in the peaceful, pastoral world of Czech wine: vine rows were dramatically lengthened to increase automated efficiency, and harvested by machine. Bohemia was less affected by this than Moravia, and this is visible in the current differences between the two regions.
Bohemia's wine country retains its original, patchy layout today. It could easily be viewed as several distinct wine regions rather than a single large one, being composed of four discrete areas to the north and north-west of Prague. These are Most (on the border with Germany's Sachsen/Saxony), Louny, Litomerice and Melnik. Traditional and modern grape varieties are grown here, and made into both long-established and new wine styles. The commercial drivers behind pastoral, low-intensity wine regions such as Bohemia are heavily linked to tourist expectations rather than the demands of mass-market exporting. The quality and diversity of Bohemian wine relies on individual winemakers who, at present, exist in relative harmony with their prolific Moravian cousins in the south.
A footnote in Bohemia's alcohol history is occupied by its version of absinth, also known as wormwood bitters. This spirit is often grouped together with French- and Swiss-style absinthe, but is different in several critical ways. The famous green, anise-flavored distillate consumed by bohemian artists and writers in 19th-century Paris is distilled from Artemesia absinthium (wormwood), anise, fennel and other herbs. The Bohemian absinth (or Czech absinth) style is not distilled, but made from mixing herbal oils with high-strength alcohol. The herbal blend of Bohemian absinth typically excludes anise and fennel, making it quite different from French or Swiss absinthe.
